


Late Night Musings

by loves_books



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Awake for no obvious reason in the early hours of the morning, Robbie watches as James sleeps peacefully beside him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late Night Musings

As a general rule, most people looked younger when they were asleep. Robbie had laughed once when James had said, in a rare moment of open and honest emotion, that the lines fell away from Robbie’s face when he slept and he looked youthful and at peace. Robbie could only laugh it off, especially when a mortified James had quickly gone on to reassure him that he loved all the lines on Robbie’s face, that they were laughter lines rather than anything else – the word ‘wrinkles’ had never passed his lips, even though Robbie knew that was exactly what they were.

Most people looked younger when they were asleep, but somehow James didn’t. James looked young anyway; sometimes he looked like a kid playing dress up in those smart suits of his, and when he dressed down in baggy jeans and a loose t-shirt he looked like he was barely out of his teens. Those long gangly limbs of his certainly didn’t help matters. 

But in sleep, somehow, he just looked like himself. Robbie had watched and wondered before, when something woke him in the middle of the night and he couldn’t get back to sleep, no matter how he tossed and turned. James slept like a log once he actually did fall asleep – Robbie had discovered early on that little could wake his partner once he managed to drop off, with the exception of the ringing of his phone or a loud alarm clock, even though he was always up with the lark at dawn and off for a run or a row on the river.

Robbie couldn’t remember what had woken him this time, but there he was, at gone three in the morning, lying awake beside his younger partner – lover, boyfriend, sergeant, he never knew quite how to think of the other man, even after all this time together. Lying next to his James.

The curtains were open just a crack, but it was enough to let in a sliver of moonlight. Enough to let Robbie see his James’s face, if he rolled over onto his side just so. Most people really did look younger when they were asleep, but James just looked… Well, perfect was the word that sprang to mind, but Robbie dismissed it with a small shake of his head and a smile. Neither of them was perfect; that was part of the reason they fitted together so well.

James looked peaceful, certainly, lying on his back, face turned ever so slightly away from Robbie. In the moonlight his pale skin was practically translucent, his blonde hair barely distinguishable from the white pillowcase. Long eyelashes fanned out on his cheeks, thin lips parted ever so slightly. Peaceful, and at rest. 

Robbie had to resist the urge to reach out a hand and trace his lover’s sharp cheekbones – James probably wouldn’t wake up, but they’d had a long day, both of them up before dawn and out to a thankfully straightforward murder. Robbie should go back to sleep too, he knew he’d regret it in the morning if he didn’t at least try, but for now he just wanted to look.

Over the years he’d seen his man in just about every state conceivable, from slouching with a cigarette in hand to unconscious in a hospital bed. He’d seen James slumped behind his desk in the office, bent casually and comfortably over his guitar, and standing ramrod straight as he gave evidence in court. James never looked to be fully at ease in his long body, though Robbie thought he had a certain casual grace, moving easily and elegantly even if he rarely did stand to his full height.

Lying like this, sleeping peacefully by Robbie’s side, James looked like his true self, long limbs unfurled and relaxed. No wrinkle in his forehead as he frowned in thought. No quirk of an eyebrow as he tried and failed to bite back a sarcastic or snarky comment. He looked like James, like Robbie’s James.

But he didn’t look younger, and Robbie wondered again why that might be. He tried hard never to focus on the age difference between them; they both did. It wasn’t a case of ignoring it – they were both far too realistic and practical for that. No, it was more a case of acknowledging it and dismissing it as a problem. Yes, Robbie was technically old enough to be James’s father. And yes, James was only a year or two older than Robbie’s eldest child. And yes, of course, Robbie was a grandfather now. But somehow it wasn’t a problem. Whatever they had worked, and it worked well. Robbie didn’t like to put labels on their relationship – James hated labels too, hated them with a passion – but it was love and that was all that mattered.

James didn’t look younger when he slept, perhaps because Robbie already knew he was younger. The very first time he laid eyes on James, that had been the first thing that struck him. Closely followed by how tall he was, and how thin, then how posh he sounded and how expensive that suit must have been. Robbie had been stood there in his horrible patterned shirt, jetlagged and not all that thrilled to be home, and there had been this great streak of nothing waggling a sign at him.

Are you for me? He still smiled when he remembered the first words he’d spoken to the man who would become such a huge and important part of his life. Turned out, James really was for him, and he was for James. Two broken people, broken in different ways, who somehow fitted together.

Are you for me, he’d asked, and then it had been almost as if they’d always known each other. James had been respectful of his rank, but unrestrained with his intelligence, wit and sarcasm, and Robbie had found himself responding in kind. They hadn’t figured each other out straight away, of course not – he still wasn’t entirely sure if he’d figured James out, and suspected his lover would feel the same way about him. But it had worked, their partnership, from day one. 

Their love had come slower, over time, and had surprised both of them with its intensity. Robbie should have known, though – no half measures from his James, not ever. He smiled as his lover sighed in his sleep, blonde head rolling ever so slightly back towards him, lips parting a little more. James did nothing in half measures. 

Nothing in half measures, ever. And still waters ran deep – Robbie smiled at the stray thought, knowing James would be able to tell him the exact origins of the phrase. At first glance, James was too young, too awkward, too complicated, too smart, but none of those things mattered. James had tumbled happily into exploring a whole other side to their relationship, even as Robbie did the same, wondering in amazement the whole time that he could have a second chance at love, at his age.

“You’re staring,” a sleepy voice mumbled, loud in the silence of their room. 

Robbie blinked back into focus, suddenly realising a pair of drowsy eyes were blinking right back at him. James stretched a little, pushing his head back into the pillows as he yawned widely, long arms shifting beneath the covers.

“Sorry, pet,” Robbie whispered, smiling back at his man. He finally gave in to the need to touch, stretching one hand beneath the blankets to stroke gently across James’s bare chest. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Hmm…” James arched into his hand, smiling now. “Didn’t wake me. You okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking.” Robbie slipped his hand slightly lower, tracing circles on his lover’s flat stomach. “How lucky I am.” 

A contented sigh escaped from between James’s parted lips, and as Robbie watched, those sleepy eyes slipped closed again. “Not luck,” he murmured, one long-fingered hand finding Robbie’s beneath the blankets and holding tight. “Love, not luck. Luck is the gateway to love. Big difference.”

Robbie had half expected a long-winded quote from Shakespeare or one of the members of the band, but even that short almost-quote from wherever sounded perfect in James’s sleep-rough voice. He had to laugh, even as he let himself be tugged closer, James rolling away and taking Robbie with him. “Trust you,” he whispered as he spooned up behind the taller man, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of his lover’s long neck. “The perfect line for every occasion.”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.” James’s words were barely audible, though Robbie could make out the smile in his voice. “Sleep now, lover-of-mine.”

And he felt he could sleep, now, wrapped around the warm body of the man he loved. As James started to snore ever so softly in his arms, Robbie offered up a quick plea for there to be no phone calls until morning, no murders or suicides or suspicious activities that might require an overworked DI and his equally overworked DS to be dragged from their cosy nest.

Robbie closed his eyes and pressed as close as he could. For all his musings about age, none of it mattered a jot, not in his book. All that mattered was that they’d found each other. He was for James, and James for him, and with that thought, he slid back into a deep and peaceful sleep.


End file.
